The last time that the narrator and Captain Torres met was under
very different circumstances. Captain Torres, as befitting his job as chief persecutor of the
rebels, had captured some rebels and had organised a little "demonstration" for the village to
show them what would happen to anyone who would rebel against the military regime that he
represents. As the narrator reflects, this first time that they had met he hadn't paid much
attention to the face of Captain Torres, even though he, like all the villagers, had to file past
him, because he was more preoccupied about the bodies that were hanging as an "object lesson" to
him and the villagers:
The day he ordered the whole town to file into the patio
of the school to see the four rebels hanging there, I came face to face with him for an instant.
But the sight of the mutilated bodies kept me from noticing the face of the man who had directed
it all, the face I was now about to take into my
hands.
What is fascinating if we
compare these two meetings is that then, the barber was completely in the power of Captain
Torres. Now, the situations have reversed, and Captain Torres is completely in the power of the
barber. The face that the narrator has not seen before he will now know intimately and come
incredibly close to. And herein lies the decision that the barber must
take.
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